Gromnir

am knowing it ain't how you meant it, but total US dead in vietnam is something 'tween 45k and 60k depending on source used. US dead for iraq were less than 5k.

Agreed, but, the game was only being referenced as having a cost to re-spec (Mass Effect 2, at least). referencing cost o' me2 respec, you observed the following: "And, really, I don't see anyone ever legitimately having a reason to respec more than once." that is what prompted our reply regarding simplicity o' me2 character development. am agreeing that in a game with complexity similar to me2 there is far less legitimate cause for respec. ignoring pure aesthetics, choose class is most meaningful decision in me2. all other me2 choices is trivial. am not certain how deep character development will be in poe, but as complexity increases, so does the usefulness o' respec, particularly if the actual mechanics o' game is as obscure as they were in da:o. as complexity and obscurity increase, so to does the value o' respec. isn't simply a question of cost if one questions the potential need for multiple respec. HA! Good Fun!

regardless o' the "interstitial" verbiage, there were the suggestion in the josh interview that at least some narration and/or cut-scene content would be handled similar to the way it were done in iwd, with the drawn "slides." as we has always thought that iwd handled such narrative exposition better than any other ie game, we is seeing this as a positive... as long as there ain't too much exposition. HA! Good Fun!

ok, the next time some yutz wants to act as if referencing black isle success and failures is irrelevant, am gonna mention this interview... you know, seeing as how josh were the one to bring up black isle connections in this interview without being any such leading questions. HA! Good Fun! ps we edited out the video as unnecessary clutter. pps am not familiar with "interstitial" being used how is seeming used by josh. is this a term o' art in the industry, or something obsidian came up with 'pon their own?

Was that really a "cost," though? I mean, you could easily get that much element zero, with a little planet-scanning effort. You could get all element-zero-based upgrades and still have enough left over for at least a couple of respecs. And, really, I don't see anyone ever legitimately having a reason to respec more than once. I can't remember if you could do it in 3, either... I think you could? am thinking if poe is similar to mass effect 2 or 3 wherein only meaningful customization beyond class choice is deciding which 2 abilities not to be eventually maxing out, there will be considerable negative backlash. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVEb2-SByPs from the replay, it looks like he barely touched the guy. yeah, the fact that strong didn't successfully do anything more than graze the croatian is a "weak" defense... pun intended. nevertheless, am thinking this clip is more a recognition o' yet another brilliant soccer flop than anything else. HA! Good Fun! ps apologies for "flop" language-- is possibly idiomatic and misleading. a "flop" is the term most frequent used in american basketball when a defending player pretends as if he were charged or run-over so as to be drawing a foul.

wasteland 2 that's it. winter 2014 arguably lasts til march 19, 2015. haven't had beta start for poe as yet, so depending how bet progresses, we could see poe release being as remote as eight or nine months... or more as there ain't no genuine motivation to stick to their projected release date. is not like obsidian gotta meet publisher milestones to get paid for poe. dragon age: inquisition is something we got interest in playing, but for bio/ea's release of mass effect 3, we waited an entire year post release before our purchase. our wait were rewarded with a stable game that were costing us less money and were getting considerable free dlc. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, we can see adding a cost of some kind. even a smallish xp penalty wouldn't disturb us too much if obsidian wanted to make respec available but extraordinary. nevertheless, with a new and complex rule system for which we has no documentation, am recognizing the possibility o' building a character that is functional poor. no matter how much the developer is attempting to balance so as to make bad characters impossible, the potential for bad or superior builds will exist and increase as does the complexity o' the system. respec can be a useful safety net for players... and the developers. even so, we don't need respec to be free. HA! Good Fun!

I am a bit different. I do not want to relax while playing story heavy games. I want emotions. When I played the last of us I really had a ****ty time but not because the game was bad but rather because it was brutal, bleak and hopeless and they did a perfect job to transfer it though the game. I also think that games should shy away from make every game fun. Just like the movie industry Gaming needs these emotional and bleak and shocking scenes and games to mature in my opinion at least. Of course fun is also important but if I want to relax I rather play a mindless jump and run or indy game. Story heavy heavy games are great for also showing a different vibe in games. Same goes for movies or TV series. Why do so many people watch stuff like Walking dead or Game of Thrones? Not because it is cool but because they want emotion and literally feel bad. It is part of human nature. That is also why the Walking Dead won so many GOTY Awards as well. darji pov is... odd. am simply not gonna be able to have meeting of the minds with him/her. gaming doesn't need bleak and shocking more than any other kinda media. for some games, shocking may be appropriate. is possible that "bleak" can enhance a game. that being said, am not gonna say that the industry needs shocking or bleak. shock needs a point. bleak needs a point. am not even gonna retread the wacky taboo craziness we dealt with earlier, but while we do not want developers to feel that controversial is off-limits, over-indulgence or forced use of "shock" and "bleak" is an even greater crime. you can make a very good game that ain't the least bit controversial, but a game that does controversial badly or forcibly is gonna end up as a poor game. HA! Good Fun! I play games because of the story. Gameplay especially in AAA or RPG games is secondary to me . And personally I would love more mature and better written stories. Stories in Games still feel like Movies from the 70s: mostly pretty bad stories and execution. And yes you are right Gaming does not need more bleak or shocking moments than any other media But right now they have almost none. A lot of things are a taboo which are totally normal in movies and series which is quite sad since I believe that games through the interaction could have a much bigger impact on your emotions than movies ever could do. But for that we also need much better writing. We are slowly getting there but as long these writers are afraid of trying something never before done in terms of story and video games we will sadly never reach that point. That is why I am very grateful for games like the Last of Us, Walking Dead or the Wolf Among us. Obsidian also does really really well in terms of writing so that is why I hope they could push these taboo topics at least a bit further. I am quite tired of all dudebro action and emotionless games. There is nothing wrong with such games but if 95% of game stories are terrible I have no other choice than support such games^^ As I said gaming does not always need to be fun and relaxing.^^ PS: Oh and I am a guy by the way. everything you say doesn't make sense to us. movies from the 70s you see as some how inherent flawed? on our top twenty movie list, near 1/2 are from the seventies alone. just as we can name 100 great novels Not challenging taboo, we can name literal dozens of great movies from the 1970s. we still don't get your weir pre 1900 literature comment. also, while we understand why you want better writing, we don't see how you insist on linking this with mature, or your own odd definition o' taboo. ... based on an earlier post, we did get that you don't seem to like harry potter. fine. we don't like harry potter neither. however, perhaps you is having the popular but misguided notion that harry potter is representative of fare for kids, and you want something more adult... maybe. dunno as you is all over the place. we will observe that harry potter is now the first books many people think o' when considering the merits o' children books. if harry potter is written for those who ain't mature and it is bad, then clearly mature is good... or somesuch flawed logic... or who knows. since this is our list reference post o' the day, we will observe that if we were to compile a list o' the best fantasy written in the last 100 years, many o' the books would be children's books. madelene l'engle, norton juster, phillip pullman, neil gaiman, as well as c.s. lewis and tolkien would be prominent authors on that list and it would be 'cause o' their works for kids. kids books is frequent as dark and as sad (since you seem preoccupied with sad as a good thing) as works written for adults, but they is necessarily written without much o' the pretension that writers wanna heap on adult readers. am having no idea what the hell "mature" means nowadays, but am damn certain we can do without it if that left us nothing but more o' the best so-called children's fare. you says you play games for story? great. go read wrinkle in time or phantom tollbooth or the graveyard book and then tell us what game has ever done superior story. HA! Good Fun!

I am a bit different. I do not want to relax while playing story heavy games. I want emotions. When I played the last of us I really had a ****ty time but not because the game was bad but rather because it was brutal, bleak and hopeless and they did a perfect job to transfer it though the game. I also think that games should shy away from make every game fun. Just like the movie industry Gaming needs these emotional and bleak and shocking scenes and games to mature in my opinion at least. Of course fun is also important but if I want to relax I rather play a mindless jump and run or indy game. Story heavy heavy games are great for also showing a different vibe in games. Same goes for movies or TV series. Why do so many people watch stuff like Walking dead or Game of Thrones? Not because it is cool but because they want emotion and literally feel bad. It is part of human nature. That is also why the Walking Dead won so many GOTY Awards as well. darji pov is... odd. am simply not gonna be able to have meeting of the minds with him/her. gaming doesn't need bleak and shocking more than any other kinda media. for some games, shocking may be appropriate. is possible that "bleak" can enhance a game. that being said, am not gonna say that the industry needs shocking or bleak. shock needs a point. bleak needs a point. am not even gonna retread the wacky taboo craziness we dealt with earlier, but while we do not want developers to feel that controversial is off-limits, over-indulgence or forced use of "shock" and "bleak" is an even greater crime. you can make a very good game that ain't the least bit controversial, but a game that does controversial badly or forcibly is gonna end up as a poor game. HA! Good Fun!

your Initial career prospects is very different if you graduate from stanford as opposed to san jose state or san francisco state. very different. once established in your field, the university you graduated from becomes significant less important, but is still an issue... forever and ever and everandeverandeverandever. HA! Good Fun! keep in mind this is a very general observation. many less recognized schools may be having one or two major programs for which they has a good reputation, at least locally. we also note that what/how you do at university is also important. go to cal state chico for communications but get 4.0 and compete on national forensics and intern with Big Company X during summer and gets sooper-dooper recommendations, is likely more important than barely graduate from stanford with same communications degree. link added ... just 'cause. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/12/09/silicon-valleys-top-10-most-lucrative.html?page=all keep in mind that there is 'bout a dozen universities (or more) in the "silicon valley.". better link http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/full-list

"But I also wonder how talent scouting for football and youth academies over there compare to over here in Europe. I've never heard much about it, so I can't judge myself, but I suspect there is a lot of room for improvement." see, that is the thing. is not at all the same in the US. there is some such scouting for basketball, and it is increasing, but is still pretty much in the hands o' parents. is even more complicated by fact that for many sports, college/university is the route one takes to get to professional level. ... ok, gonna use self as an example to illustrate. Gromnir were a multi-sport athlete. our best sport were swimming, but best swimmers don't swim in high school as the local club teams is invariably superior. is same for fencing, which were another o' our sports. at high school we wrestled and played football. technically we were on track team, but that were a bit o' a lie as we didn't even genuine practice most times... least not til later. the thing is, by the end o' our freshman year, we had to start focusing on a sport if we wanted to gain enough notice to get a scholarship to university. so, how did we make our choice? well, since swimming were our best sport, we clear shoulda' chosen swimming, yes? no. we were a fantastic swimmer, but we were only having the most limited prospects o' ever being an olympic swimmer or earning enough in endorsements to make swimming a kinda short-term career. ultimately, we were looking at swimming as a possible way to pay for college. the thing is, even at stanford, cal, texas and florida, only a handful o' full-ride scholarships were available per year. that weren't a big deal for those schools 'cause swimming is typical a sport for upper-middle class kids who already has enough money to go to college. Gromnir had no money. fencing were our third bestest sport, but no school at the time were offering full scholarship for fencing. the good news were that fencing programs were popular at very good schools. ivy league, notre dame, duke and... penn state. penn state weren't a bad school, but it always struck us as kinda funny that the bests fencing school were penn state. we were getting some serious interest from places like penn (that is university of pennsylvania, not penn state,) but again, we were likely to be offered a 1/2 or even 1/4 scholarship. wrestling? truth-to-tell, we were kinda a recreational wrestler. at a school known for great wrestling, we were the third best wrestler at our school. that were actual quite impressive as a freshman. even so, our chances o' landing a scholarship, even a partial one, to Any school were in question. if we were very diligent, northern illinois mighta' been a good option... which weren't an option as far as we were concerned. and so we come to football. is only a couple college sports where you is certain that you will get a full-ride scholarship if you is elite: football and basketball. even big timey hockey and baseball is typical giving out maybe 1/2 or less o' their scholarships as full-rides... and those scholarships is paid for by revenue brought in by football and basketball. football and basketball is the big wins for a college athlete. there is 120+ (125?) ncaa division 1 football programs in the US. each school can give out 85 full scholarships, and most use that entire allotment. (some schools, such as alabama, functional exceed the limits through something called grey-shirting, but we digress.) FCS schools may offer 63 full schollies... some of which are broken in half to fill out a full roster. division 1 schools include private academic powerhouses such as Stanford, Duke and Notre Dame as well as internationally recognized public schools like the Universities of Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia... and Cal. FCS schools include pretty much every ivy league school: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. as an aside, there is 351 division 1 basketball schools although roster size is 13 max. for us it were as much a numbers game as anything else. our chances o' getting a scholarship to a university we would actual want a degree from were bestest if we focused 'pon football. many kids and parents has fantasies 'bout their child playing pro sports and making millions, but just as many know that sports is a crap shoot, and you is always one injury away from retired no matter how good you is. get a degree has value beyond sports, and the numbers make it obvious where most schollie opportunities is available. there is very practical reasons why kids, particular poor kids, play basketball and football. scholarship opportunities is one such reason. HA! Good Fun!

Edit: comparing the two lists, the one you give and the Forbes one, the salary and winnings don't seem to match at all - and you yourself say you have a list where the highest paid football player is #22 with endorsements added. No idea what's up with that, to be honest. the list we gave is slight older, so new mayweather fight weren't included. also, the list we offered made use of standard euro/dollar adjustment and included only included salaries + winnings... though the salaries were adjusted for various inherent bonuses. forbes also did a particular poor job o' researching the nfl contracts, at the very least. am thinking they looked at a 5 year contract and simple divided by 5. aaron rodgers, for instance, will not be near as high on the list Next year. the reason is that his contract were front-loaded heavily. this is typical in the nfl where contracts is not guaranteed and a player can be cut 2 years into a 5 year deal... just as an example. the yearly forbes list has gotten considerable criticism, which caused the proliferation o' other lists to fix perceived problems. HA! Good Fun!

we knew this were coming. *sigh* there isn't any such place. really. sure, there is places in sub-saharan africa where rape happens frequently, but even there it is considered a bad thing. murder also happens in such places. just 'cause it happens frequent, don't think the people there is unaware that rape is bad. yeah, we suspect there was, in the distant past, times and places where women were considered less than human. and there Is some cultures even today wherein women is considered little better than property, but rape is still considered a violation in such places. exception: even today there is a suprising wide held belief that a wife cannot be raped by a husband, but again, am doubting obsidian would engage in such nonsense. *shrug* regardless, we knew some yutz would try the moral relativism shtick. grats. HA! Good Fun! As much as I wish it was true, I'm not sure that is entirely accurate. is getting attention 'cause the guy said something stoopid... though we did mention in another thread that the parliamentary elections in india were far more relevant than the euro ones for precise the reason we see above. women and gays is gonna have things rough in india for near future. terrible. the good/bad o' parliamentary elections is that we get guys like the schnook above, and the clown in russia that did... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2609016/Six-month-pregnant-journalist-taken-hospital-treatment-pro-Kremlin-political-leader-ordered-aides-violently-rape-press-conference-asked-sanctions-against-Ukraine.html HA! Good Fun!

am certain we saw that video previous and much better quality. am thinking most o' that were included in a wide distributed interview, so it ain't really leaked per se... give us a sec. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66207-dragon-age-inquistion/page-12 is some other such. got to see the horned female player. still, we wish we could see gameplay on a pc with tactical view. HA! Good Fun!

am not certain who this is directed at, but we will note that there is valid reasons for including rape and sexual assaults in stories. rape is violent and ugly. other than a handful of extreme twisted persons, and perhaps those who like japanese pr0n manga, people understand that rape is evil. is one o' those few acts that ain't subject to moral relativism. the most depraved and irredeemable villains 'mongst us has had a mother or sister. as such, it takes very little empathy to be understanding that forced sex is a brutal and dehumanizing act. perhaps modern medias has ruined us all a bit. heck, look at crpgs and see that our heroic characters is mass murderers who could stack up their copses high 'nuff to challenge nimrod's tower. thieves and arsonists is as likely to be good guys as bad in our games. but rape is different. rape is evil, and so little is these days. yeah, there is some broken children on this board who might argue for rape as something other than vile and ugly, but do you think it is even remote possible that obsidian developers would follow such a lead? HA! Good Fun! Gromnir what are saying? Do you mean there is no point discussing our utter contempt for topics like including rape in the game because Obsidian will never include them in the game anyway? Oh and in almost cases rape is not about sex but rather a form of power over women, this is directed at anyone who has the absurd idea that rape is about sex 1) as to first point, that is not what we is saying at all. 2) as to second point. so what? is complete beside the point. rape is evil but it is, by definition, sexual in nature. HA! Good Fun!

except for some parts of world where its moraly completely ok to rape women, but she have to have correct clothes of course irony of morality in stoneage cultures, oh wait... we knew this were coming. *sigh* there isn't any such place. really. sure, there is places in sub-saharan africa where rape happens frequently, but even there it is considered a bad thing. murder also happens in such places. just 'cause it happens frequent, don't think the people there is unaware that rape is bad. yeah, we suspect there was, in the distant past, times and places where women were considered less than human. and there Is some cultures even today wherein women is considered little better than property, but rape is still considered a violation in such places. exception: even today there is a suprising wide held belief that a wife cannot be raped by a husband, but again, am doubting obsidian would engage in such nonsense. *shrug* regardless, we knew some yutz would try the moral relativism shtick. grats. HA! Good Fun! ps portion o' post didnt post.

am not certain who this is directed at, but we will note that there is valid reasons for including rape and sexual assaults in stories. rape is violent and ugly. other than a handful of extreme twisted persons, and perhaps those who like japanese pr0n manga, people understand that rape is evil. is one o' those few acts that ain't subject to moral relativism. the most depraved and irredeemable villains 'mongst us has had a mother or sister. as such, it takes very little empathy to be understanding that forced sex is a brutal and dehumanizing act. perhaps modern medias has ruined us all a bit. heck, look at crpgs and see that our heroic characters is mass murderers who could stack up their copses high 'nuff to challenge nimrod's tower. thieves and arsonists is as likely to be good guys as bad in our games. but rape is different. rape is evil, and so little is these days. yeah, there is some broken children on this board who might argue for rape as something other than vile and ugly, but do you think it is even remote possible that obsidian developers would follow such a lead? HA! Good Fun!

Reducing female NPCs to collectible cards with boob pictures could be called many things, but "mature" and "tasteful" are not amongst them, methinks. well, our default for classing up entertainment media is to include judi dench and/or venessa redgrave. unfortunately, am not thinking that would help with b00b cards. HA! Good Fun!

as an aside, lets look at some failed or marginal nfl quarterbacks: michael vick, tim tebow, vince young, terelle pryor, ronald curry, denard robinson, matt tuiasosopo, troy smith, jordan lynch, and kyle boller. only michael vick can be labeled as arguably other than a fail as a qb, and yet those guys were almost invariably the most athletic players every time they stepped on the gridiron. bad throwing motions. inability to read extreme complex nfl defenses. too short. small hands. too fragile. whatever. those ten guys got the kinda athleticism any soccer team in the world woulda' been hard-pressed to match... soccer kinda athleticism. if soccer were more important in the US, would those guys have gone to a sport more suited to their abilities? oh, add a super athletic te as goalkeep... perhaps aaron hernandez? too soon? HA! Good Fun!

am thinking enoch is overstating the sport-specific skill set o' soccer. the skill position players on a typical high school football team is better athletes than the guys playing soccer. with same/similar experience playing soccer, the football guys would eviscerate the soccer guys. oh sure, in some communities, particularly upper and upper middle-class neighborhoods, some better athletes gravitate towards soccer (see our comments about notre dame and duke earlier.) but most places? Gromnir were one o' those freaky athletic kids. hell, we didn't even mention above that we went to state for the 100 m dash for high school track 'cause we didn't actual run track... we honest just showed up for meets. at age 10 or 12, we were always the best at every sport we played, including soccer. am thinking we may still hold a couple under 18 distance swimming records in state X. that is typical the way it is with the superior athletic kids, yes? how many 10-year-olds has you ever seen that were super at football or hockey but bad at soccer? unless they got some specific disability, athletic kids is... athletic. short o' some weird condition, we can't recall any college level db, rb, or wr we played with who had anything other than amazing cardiovascular and am thinking you perhaps don't know how much footwork is required to be a skill position player in football, particularly corners. the genuine athletic kids grow into athletic high school kids... and some o' those kids go on to play college and pro. jim brown, hershel walker and even Gromnir (to a MUCH lesser degree) woulda' been good at any/every sport, but soccer not require us to be tall and it not require particular upper body strength. am thinking it is a more inclusive sport rather than particular exclusive, and that is a good thing. basketball, where tall has an overwhelming advantage, is bad. nevertheless, is kids or parents who choose football. with few exceptions, great skill position football players woulda' been great at soccer too. btw, every sport requires excellent balance. is one o' those under-valued attributes. even swimming is dealing with keeping self balanced although the orientation is different. name a sport that don't require great balance and we will observe that such recognition is proof that it ain't genuine a sport. nascar for instance? HA! Good Fun! ps most o' the guys we recall from cross-country in high school woulda' been pretty weak at soccer... and is the cross-country guys we knew who most frequent ended up doing marathons. cross-country guys is rare having the quick-jerk muscles we believe benefit soccer players. pps... somehow our quoted material form enoch ended up in the center o' our post, so we dumped it with edit. pardon if causes confusion

it would be great if soccer were more popular here in the us... is a shame it ain't. pro basketball has a handful o' freaky short folks, but the average player is extreme tall, which functional excludes many potential athletes. hockey is a great freaking sport, but here in the US the only way you can practice year round is if you have enough money to buy ice time... and there aren't many rinks in the southeast and southwest. baseball is... well, for folks who love baseball, baseball is great. we enjoyed baseball as a kid, but we played catcher. top baseball players get paid very well, so some kids will continue to play. lacrosse? water polo? volley ball? water polo is probable the most physical demanding team sport we could care to mention, but in the US it is a rich kid sport and too much action happens underwater. already mentioned lacrosse... and in the US, volleyball is still a girls' sport. football, as we noted above, is dangerous. if it were up to Gromnir, we wouldn't have kids playing tackle football til they is sophomore in high school, and has cat scans and mri to rule out possible predisposition to various spinal problems. nevertheless, football is the current most popular sport. soccer is a good sport for kids and it is popular worldwide. sure, it ain't as physical as Americans like their sports but football genuine is too dangerous. is too bad that the vast majority o' our best athletes don't care 'bout soccer... and our second tier athletes is split mongst individual sports and lacrosse, water polo, volley ball and a host o' other sports. HA! Good Fun!

You have to remember that the US Soccer program only gets the athletes that weren't good enough for Basketball, Football, Baseball, or Hockey. Altidore earns 2,2 million pounds a year in the Premier League, I am sure he's crying all the way to the bank about not being good enough for other sports. I don't doubt their ability to perform, anyway. I just wonder if something went wrong in their fitness training, considering a lot of them looked on the verge of injury. http://www.financenews24.com/2013/08/03/the-top-25-highest-salaries-in-sports-in-2013-2014/ please also note where it speaks of endorsements. top soccer player would be #22 if adjusted for endorsements. 'course the biggest adjustment ain't covered: taxes. one possible major hurdle to nfl plans to add a london team is that higher tax rate would necessitate various and complex alterations to salaries and the salary cap. and don't buy into the popularity rising stories you see posted. every 10ish years we see such. when Gromnir were a kid in the mid 70s, soccer were becoming super popular. then it wasn't. in 1984, with US hosting olympics, Americans were told that soccer were popular, but apparently we weren't buying. same thing happened in 1994 when US hosted the world cup... and the US actual did very well that year. soccer became popular for another year or so. now it is 2014, and soccer is popular again? *sigh* sure it is. soccer is popular in the US the same way lacrosse is. you can find youth lacrosse and soccer teams everywhere in the US these days. is loads o' kids playing soccer and lacrosse. hell, we love men's lacrosse. all the stuff folks in the US complain 'bout soccer is absent from lacrosse. lacrosse is fast and physical and no game gets decided after time is ended by stoopid penalty shots. notre dame, virginia, north carolina, duke and johns hopkins will continue to field very nice college lacrosse and soccer teams, and maybe we will see the highlights o' the ncaa tourney game for either on espn. we will also be told in 2024 that soccer is sooper popular. HA! Good Fun!

You always have to think about when these books were first released and written. They broke tons of taboos and were highly controversial back in their time. If they handle topics like pedophilia they would be even today still controversial depending how and what its written in these books. These books became classics because of the break of morals and standards their time. Many of them also highly political controversial as well. They seems harmless now but they certainly were not back then. we very much is considering the time o' release. ... am thinking that this is simply a misunderstanding of definition. if Lolita were everyday and ordinary, we wouldn't still be using as an example +50 years after publication. serious, is not worth arguing. HA! Good Fun! ps controversial does not equal taboo. a quickie looksee at broad sociological categories o' folkways, mores, and taboo might help.

am not sure you know what is "taboo." and surely you misunderstand what is literature that is breaking or challenging taboo. for every example you provide, we can provide a dozen that don't challenge taboo notions. lit that suggests that slavery is bad is Not breaking or challenging taboo. sexual violence in a book is Not taboo. offend the Gods and get sent on egotrip is Not an example o' challenging taboo, but is reinforcing. literature that suggests that man is inherently bad 'cause he does taboo stuff is also not breaking or challenging taboo. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! ps am thinking you misapprehend challenge and break of taboo, but even still, most literature challenges preconceptions... is not same as challenging taboo.